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By: |Syed Tazmeen Javed|

Ever since Pakistan has emerged on the World map; two competing narratives have been blown out of proportion. The two narratives that needs complete dissection is whether Democracy had found its feets or dictatorship was more close to the possible expectations of the masses.

But in my slightest of understanding, both could not deliver to its potential. For instance Democracy was never seen to reflect its true meaning; however politicians tried to put the blame of fragility, incompetence on a ‘Deeper State’. By using this pretext in last 70 years politicians have had been somehow or the other remained relevant.

In the meanwhile, every dictator that came in gave the slogan of ‘accountability’ but succumbed to the ground realities that it had to encounter. He used the same incompetent political class for his durable thirst of power.

Surprisingly both the phases of so called ‘Democracy’ and ‘Dictatorship’ equally had the share of 35 years each.

But without going further into the details of what happened in last 7o years, lets stick to the ongoing ‘political crisis’, and try to comprehend it with the historical discourses we avail. Ever since the Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was ousted on the ‘Panama’ verdict Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and its stalwarts are extremely critical on the Supreme Court’s judgment. Nawaz argues that his ouster was not justified and more pertinently it was because “someone was pulling the strings from behind”.

However, he has not revealed the alleged conspirators, or the ‘real forces behind’, but had successfully built a narrative of last 70 years and then giving impressions that nothing has changed.

He turned his guns against the judiciary and created a slogan for himself “Mujhe q Nikala”, seeking reasons for his ouster. By the way, one must not forget that Nawaz Sharif has been the greatest beneficiary of a weaker justice system. Prior to Panama saga, every Supreme Court verdict with the exception of two and three bailed him out and saved his day. But ironically, Nawaz remarked himself an ‘ideological’ person, forgetting that he was the true epitome of a “status quo” who was breaded on the laps of military establishment.

But he appears to be victorious in claiming all this. One can imagine why? The simple and a easy answer to this was a weak judgment which gave Nawaz Sharif the pretext to thrive. Had the honorable Supreme Court’s judges would have given their verdict on the findings of corruption, mal practices, as the Sharifs while defending their case in the Supreme Court could not give proper money trail transaction, perhaps the things would have been different. His ouster on ‘Aqama’ and not declaring his un- withdrawn salary in his nomination paper while contesting elections became the reason of his disqualification, under the article of 62 and 63.

This gave the PML(N) the wanted narrative to build their case, and present themselves as the persecuted political party. Rightly so PML(N) grabbed the best possible opportunity to slam its political foe Imran Khan as being the “Ladla”(Favorite) of few institutions. One must mention that Nawaz Sharif was more than a ladla in his entire political carrier.

Realities remain relevant so as the actors. Nothing has changed. Democracy, Justice System, Non Political forces are relevant and playing their parts, as the accountability against corruption, strings being pulled from behind and everything is not new. What new is that we hope all would change in 2018, but it won’t, however the faces might be changed.